Russell’s Reserve Straight Rye Whiskey 6 Year Old
Russell’s Reserve Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey Aged 6 Years
It has been a while for quite a few things. Firstly, I have been neglectful of my Nice Sipper alter ego for the past few months as the old day job’s been quite busy, so for my lapse in writing reviews, you have my deepest apologies. Secondly, it’s been a long time since I did a rye post, which is strange since I certainly haven’t stopped drinking ryes! So let’s immediately address both of these problems with some July 4th weekend rye reviews.
Today we will be dipping into a Russell’s Reserve Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey Aged for 6 years. For those unfamiliar with the brand, Russell’s Reserve is named after the father/son duo, Jimmy & Eddie Russell of the Wild Turkey Distillery. Jimmy Russell is a Kentucky Bourbon icon, having worked at Wild Turkey for nearly 70 years, and his son Eddie is no slouch, joining the distillery over 40 years ago with decades of accolades in his own right. To celebrate Jimmy’s 45th year at Wild Turkey, Eddie created a special small batch release called, you guessed it, Russell’s Reserve. Interestingly enough, Russell’s Reserve has its own website (here) so its product portfolio won’t be found at the Wild Turkey website.
It took me a long time to crack into the Wild Turkey family of bourbons and ryes. My initial sipping adventures seemed to focus on the Buffalo Trace and Jim Beam’s small batch releases in addition to the slew of microdistilleries that were popping up all over the place at the time. Last year, I did a review on the infamous Wild Turkey 101 (here) and I was pleasantly surprised. But my first glimpse into the Wild Turkey way of making bourbon was a few years prior to that via a store pick for Russell’s Reserve Bourbon from Gordon’s Wines, or more specifically, the “Warehouse D” pick at the time, which I think I went back and bought 4-5 over the course of a few months until they ran out.
The Russell’s Reserve 6 year old rye has been around since 2007, which means that Eddie began crafting this release at the latest, as far back as 2001. Given all of the choices in today’s American rye whiskey world, this might not stick out as anything special but American rye whiskey was essentially a dead category in 2001. If you go to a liquor store today, you will find at least a dozen different ryes at the smaller liquor stores with maybe over 100 options at the big-box retailers. But over 20 years ago, you might have only found a handful, if any at all.
The mash bill is reported by many to be 51% Rye, 37% Corn, and 12% Malted Barley. I’ve seen some sites that put the Rye at 52% and the Corn at 36%, but I’m going to stick with 51% as 52% seems pretty arbitrary while 51% makes me think Eddie wanted to craft a rye that would be very familiar to the Wild Turkey bourbon drinkers as 51% is the minimal amount of rye grain that can be in a whiskey marketed as a rye.
Time for the tasting.
ABV: 45%
How it smells….hay stacks, cotton candy, banana bread, slightly sharp if you inhale too deeply.
How it tastes…honey sweet at the front which transitions to that dry rye mouthfeel towards the middle of the sip. The sweetness persists at the end but perhaps is a bit more caramelized than the initial honey sweetness. The finish picks up some black pepper spice and a bit of heat in addition to the continued sweetness.
Price....$47
Rating….🥃🥃🥃🥃
Final thoughts….I really enjoyed this sipper. It is very approachable, particularly while sipping neat. If you like your whiskey with ice, I would recommend larger cubes as this is a lighter, tamer rye whiskey and too much dilution will really take away from the flavors. Throughout the sip, you get a lot of rye personality and a lot of the prototypical rye flavors, but it’s not as punchy as I expected and I don’t pick up any big rye spicy flavors. I’m unsure if this is driven by the mash bill being a barely legal rye or if it’s the 90 proof bottling. For those that have read a lot of my previous reviews, I’m not one of those whiskey nerds who thinks anything bottled below cask strength isn’t worth the while. Most of my go-to bottles are proofed down to 45% ABV and in one particular case (Old Forester), I have started buying the 86 proof bourbon in lieu of the 100 proof version, mainly because I can enjoy more of it without getting unintentionally hammered. I suppose I can remove one variable by tracking down a bottle of the Russell Reserve Single Barrel Rye which seems to be bottled at a more robust 104 proof, but as a NAS (Non-Age Statement) release, it may not be apples to apples. That said, it should be a good enough proxy. So be on the lookout for that review and the ultimate head to head comparison sometime in the future.
From the nose through the sip, while it’s not intensely bold it is very pleasant throughout. The first whiff lets you know it’s a rye right from the start, but instead of getting too grassy, or what I always refer to as “rye haystacks”, the smell is robust with cotton candy sweetness. A lot of the time when I do these, the sweetness is just, well, sweet. Sometimes more honey, sometimes more caramelly. But there’s only so many ways to describe “sweet” as a smell without using poetic license and completely making stuff up, but to me this was distinctly cotton candy. After a quick search around the web, it seems a lot of folks picked up this sweetness as bubblegum. I also picked up some banana bread, sort of a sweet and bready combination. There are some of that rye haystacks notes, but very faint.
The sip starts off really sweet with those hints of rye notes present, but remaining in the background throughout the sip from start through the finish. At the end, I picked up some black pepper and the finish was a combination of rich caramel and heat. When I first did the tasting, I picked up some pumpernickel bread and thought the rye flavor was more robust and darker than the traditional rye haystacks notes, but when I did the final tasting as I began to write this review, I didn’t get any of that.
Overall, I think this is a solid 4x 🥃 given the enjoyability of the sip and the mid-$40 price point. If you are a hardcore rye fan and want all of those robust rye spice flavors, then you might want to take a pass on this bottle as it’s going to disappoint you with its sweet-forward and more tamed rye approach. But for others, particularly those bourbon drinkers who want to break into the rye category, this is a solid choice.
Nice Sipper Ratings Reminder…
All ratings are done on a scale between 1x 🥃 and 5x 🥃 according to the following criteria
1x 🥃 = I don't like this at all and/or not worth the cost by a mile.
2x 🥃🥃 = This is "meh" and/or slightly overpriced.
3x 🥃🥃🥃 = This is good stuff and/or the price is right.
4x 🥃🥃🥃🥃 = This is wonderful and I'm always keeping it in stock especially at this price.
5x 🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃 = This is amazing and/or this is way underpriced for the quality of the experience.
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